"No," said Thénard, "every man is double. We have numerous cases where, from accident or other circumstances, a man's personality changes; one side of his nature is suppressed. There is one strange point about your case, though, and that is the waking up of the suppressed personality so vividly during sleep; but in your case it is perhaps not so strange."
"Because, and excuse me for being personal even though I am complimentary, your personality as I knew you before your accident was so profound, and vivid, and powerful, that even though it is suppressed it must speak. And it speaks in dreams."
"So!--perhaps you are right. Now tell me, if you operate and remove the pressure, may I become myself again?"
"The mind," said Thénard, "has nothing to do with time. At the Battle of the Nile, a sea captain, one of those iron-headed Englishmen, was struck on his iron head with fragment of shell. He lost his memory. Eight months after he was trephined; he awoke from the operation completing the order he was giving to his sailors when the accident cut him short----"
"I would be the same man. I would not be tormented with the other self which is me, now?"
"Possibly--I do not say probably, but possibly."
"Then," said Berselius, "for God's sake, operate at once."
"I would like to wait for another twelve hours," said Thénard, rising and re-examining the slight dent of his patient's skull.
"Well, to see if things may be cleared up a bit, and the necessity for operation be removed."
"You know, in every operation, however slight, there is an element of danger to life."
"Life! what do I care? I insist on your operating. Not another night shall pass----"
"And now," said Berselius, "make your preparations, and send me my secretary."
At twelve o'clock that night, Maxine was seated in the library, with a book which she had been vainly trying to read face downward on the floor beside her.
Thénard, his assistant surgeon, and two nurses, had arrived shortly after ten. Operating table, instruments, everything necessary had been brought, set up, and fixed by Thénard's own man.
Adams had no part in the proceedings except as a looker-on. No man could assist Thénard in an operation who was not broken to the job, for, when operating Thénard became quite a different person to the every-day Thénard of lecture room and hospital ward.